Islamic Fundamentalism: Worldwide Nightmare
Whether you feel affected by a spate of terrorist attacks against innocent civilians over the weekend in Kenya, Pakistan and Iraq in the name of Islam or not at all, welcome to the nightmare.
A long time ago I had a dream. It was about a bright future for the people I descend from, for my native language and for the next generations. My dream was built on a deep belief that we are people who deserve better than what was given to us by our own leaders first and by the world second. In my dream, everything was reformed: From schools curricula to civic duty, patriotism, loyalty, family values, freedoms and liberties. I saw our future in many of the books I read, the ethnic diversity of my friends, the mosaic of politics and ideologies within my circle of family and friends. Add to that people I came across all over Lebanon during a civil war that destroyed and divided the nation beyond any hope of repair. My dream could absorb various possibilities of rebellion, uprising and revolution. It also had room for diplomacy, negotiations and peacefully demanding rights. My dream was vast enough to include everyone and every ideology as long as freedom, equality and prosperity for all was the aim.
What was never in my dream is terrorism. Nor did I ever associate symbolic words such as Youth, Students, Base or God with suicide bombs or killing the innocent.
In Nairobi over the weekend at least sixty eight people were killed because they were not Muslim or could not name the mother of Prophet Mohammed as the al Qaeda-linked “Al-Shabab” demanded. In Peshawar, a suicide attack, which the Taliban-linked group “Jundullah” claimed responsibility for, killed more than 80 Christian worshippers. In Sadr City more than sixty mourners were killed at a Shiite funeral in twin suicide attacks. Yes, the same terrorism in the name of Islam is butchering people on a daily basis all over Iraq. It is also committed regularly from Damascus to Mindanao to Xinjiang. All continents are now under threat.
It is cheap to terrorize, but very expensive to prevent terrorism or fight it. It is easy to deploy terrorists, but difficult and tedious to recruit and train people to fight them and eradicate them. Terrorism is my enemy, and terrorism in the name of Islam should be treated as first enemy of Islam and every one of us. We need to acknowledge the threat and fight it head on. Otherwise, it will be the nightmare we will not wake up from any time soon!
posted by Administrator at
2:27 PM
2 Comments:
Keep the conversation going...
Violence solves nothing. Terrorism is pathetic. If you are young, avoid the evil who encourage you to weaponize and hate.
We have modern weapons of warfare in combination with ignorant and or angry men who feel like they have no legitimate power so they take what they can get when they are manipulated and manoevered by wilier men who seek real power/territory/money/acclaim.
Osama had all the money in the world through his family, but as a Yemeni in KSA, he was never going to have a chance to have any real power or influence legitimately-however, I think he figured he was owed it-so he took it the way he could get it. I think most of those men are so deluded they don't even know why they are doing this stuff. It isn't from our religion, it is evil and hateful and just plain wrong in every way. What REALLY makes me angry is that some, in the interests of solidarity, try to give their missions some kind of meaning or purpose or validity. You know these men don't believe it, but they understand the anger underlying this and since they are "brothers" in our faith, they want there to be SOME kind of authentic motivation. They don't want to say "they are not Muslim, they are not acting according to Islam-because you don't say that about a "brother". I wish we could just all agree that terrorism abrogates the brotherhood.It doesn't work that way so all it does is make the majority of Muslims look sympathetic while the only thing we understand is the anger-not the response. This is my own opinion and one that was formed while living with and sharing bread with Muslims in the Middle East and here at home.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home